Kiwi nurse’s care helps British Prime Minister Boris Johnson recover from COVID-19

Dubai: Jenny McGee from New Zealand is a name that has gone viral on social media, internationally. She is one of the 35-year-old Intensive Care Unit (ICU) nurses credited by British Prime Minister Boris Johnson for helping him come back from the brink of becoming a COVID-19 fatality.

Thousands, if not millions of healthcare workers around the world are doing what she continues to do, expose themselves to a deadly virus to help save lives, daily.

The referencing of McGee by Johnson in a nationwide address, made other patients of the frontline healthcare professional come forward.

A former patient, David Cotton, told Sky News in an interview that she is “a 100 per cent professional … thoroughly dedicated”. He said that with her personality and sense of authority, McGee makes a patient feel that “you’re in wonderfully safe hands”.

She works in the ICU department of St Thomas Hospital in London, where Johnson was admitted a few days’ ago. Post his recovery, Johnson went on to thank the country’s National Health Service and mentioned “in particular two nurses who stood by my bedside for 48 hours when things could have gone either way. They are Jenny from new Zealand, Invercargill on the South Island to be exact, and Luis from Portugal – near Porto”. He said that he made it through because for 48 hours, “for every second of the night they [Jenny and Luis] were watching”.

McGee has refused to give any interviews. But, her brother Rob McGee spoke to the New Zealand Herald, and he is quoted as saying: “We are all very proud of Jen, not just in the support she gave Boris – but what she has been doing helping everyday people.”

A sentiment echoed by her parents in an interview posted by BBC and Sky News. Caroline McGee, her mother said that her daughter did not discuss her VIP patient with the family and only told them about it after Johnson left the ICU.

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She said: “Our daughter is very professional… made us exceptionally proud.” And added that McGee had told them that the experience was “most surreal”, “something she would never forget’.

Other Kiwis weighed in and expressed their pride in Jenny McGee being from New Zealand.